Puerto Madryn to El Calafate

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My bus ride down from BA was supposed to take 20 hours but we had only made 60kms out of the city when our bus broke down. Thankfully the bus broke down next to a cafe as I was stuck there for 4 hours waiting for a replacement bus. As a result of the delay by the time I arrived at Puerto Madryn I was pretty done with sitting at the bus and was happy to walk along the sea front to my hostel. Puerto Madryn is a tourist town famous for the national parks nearby with various types of wildlife to enjoy. I instantly liked my hostel on arrival it had a very friendly family feel to it with really nice staff, rooms and a communal area. I booked to do a trip to one part of the park the next day with the main attraction seeing the largest colony of penguins outside of Antarctica. The hostel puts on a BBQ for 50 pesos (around 8 pounds) this was a great touch as not only was the food delicious but it was a great way to meet other people from the hostel. At the end of the trip we were unfortunately told that the company who the hostel use for the tours had cancelled the trip for the next day so it seemed I would have a free day.

The next I had a relaxing morning and the rest of the day would have probably continued that way if a Dutch guy named Thijs had not arrived he told me he was going on a bike ride to see some seals and I decided to join him. It was 17km to the seal colony which did not seem that far when we were breezing through the nice paved streets however once we got a couple of kms outside the town the road turned to gravel and it became really hard to cycle but determined to get there we pushed on even over some pretty tough hills. In the end it took us over an hour to get there much longer than expected but the seals were really cool to see with several swimming in the sea and the rest lazing away on the rocks including the big alpha male who dominated the scene with his size and noise. The ride back was no easier with a lot more uphill’s but once we hit the tarmac again we were renewed with energy racing each other through the streets back to the rental shop. It was Halloween in the evening and the hostel put on a special meal of white salmon and king prawns freshly caught that day it was amazing definitely a big plus for this hostel not eaten such good seafood since Asia.

My third day in Puerto Madryn would be my longest as I was heading into the national park on a big day of animal watching. Our guide gave us an introduction to the history of Patagonia on our 3 hour drive to the park - the area is enormous stretching for thousands of kms from central Argentina all the way to the bottom and into the south of Chile. There used to be an indigenous population in the region who apparently were very tall with the average height being 2 metres but in a government directive they were pretty much wiped out at the end of the 19th century. Our first stop for the day was to go whale watching something I was pretty excited to do as I have never seen a whale in the wild. In the end it was even better than I had expected as there were at least 8 whales in the region all mothers and babies. The guide explained that this is area is a major spot for southern right whales breeding - the mothers will spend many months after the birth preparing the babies for the swim north. One of the main techniques for the babies to find their mother is for the baby to breach out of water hence signaling their position. The babies were doing this over and over again which of course was amazing to watch. We spent over an hour observing the whales with one highlight being when one of the mothers came within a few metres of the boat and we were able to appreciate the size of the whale. After the whale watching and a spot of lunch we headed further into the park to a beach which was inhabited by elephant seals. As with the whale this was a breeding area so all of the seals we saw were less than a year old. They appeared to be very lazy barely moving but the guide explained they were firstly not moving to stay cool and secondly were building up reserves of fat and strength for the long swim north for the winter feeding areas. Due to their lack of movement there was not much more to keep you there at least until the largest seal started attacking the smaller ones around it in which we agreed looked alarmingly like either attempted rape or suffocation as the larger seal flopped on top of the smaller one - in the end after the smaller seal had escaped being squashed several times the two seals ended in a cuddling position so a happy ending of sorts I guess! Our final stop for the day was to see some penguins that were also nesting with a mother and father protecting the eggs. The penguins were very territorial not afraid to attack other birds that got too close or screech at us if they thought we were a threat.

The next day a group of us from the hostel had booked to go snorkeling with sea lions but due to the weather conditions this was cancelled so it turned into a nothing day of admin sorting out my bus tickets for the next day and generally chilling out. Fortunately the next morning conditions were much improved so after a trip to the dive shop to get kitted out in full dry suits (the water was only 15 degrees) we set off to see the sea lions. As soon as we hit the water the sea lions came right over as we would soon discover they are very inquisitive and playful animals. It was an amazing experience as they would suddenly pop there heads up right in front of you to stare at you, bite your fins/arm playfully or generally do all kinds of water acrobatics around us. It was by far the highlight of my time in Puerto Madryn and the hour and fifteen minutes we were in the water despite the cold seemed to fly by as we interacted with these amazing animals. In the end it was so much fun the dive master had to almost drag some of us out of the water to get us to leave!

After a change and a much needed hot shower back in the hostel Thijs and I headed down to the bus station as we had decided to head together to El Calafate which is famous for the Perito Moreno glacier. The bus was another joyful 28 hours but the buses in Argentina are very good and I am sure I will be harking for them when I hit some of the poorer South American countries. On arrival we made our way to our hostel and booked to go see the glacier the next day.

The bus arrived at the glacier arrived at 10am and would not pick us up to 5pm giving us 7 hours to view it which seemed a little excessive considering it was all viewed from walkways and you could not actually go onto the glacier. The route we took to see the glacier took us firstly alongside the glacial lake which gave spectacular views of the lake stretching away to the snow capped mountains in the distance. However these views were easily eclipsed when we got closer to the glacier as it was incredible in its size being around 60 metres high, stretching across for several kilometres and god knows how far back. Unlike most glaciers the Perito Moreno glacier is expanding which helped explained its enormous size compared to the ones I saw in New Zealand which were retreating. The walkways had been well designed as over the next 3 hours we were able to see the glacier from every angle but by far the best part was when huge chunks of ice would break off the glacier to crash into the water which would make a huge amount of noise and a spectacular sight. There is a boat which takes you right up to the glacier but we had chosen not to take it but one advantage of this is that when the large boat approached the glacier it put into perspective for us the size of not only the glacier but also the icebergs floating in the water which made the boat looking pretty insignificant. One downside was as predicted we had seen pretty much all there was to see of the glacier after 3 hours and as a result we had to spend 4 hours sitting around waiting for the bus it certainly puts a dampener on the visit as you end up either very bored or annoyed at paying the extortionate restaurant prices.

When we returned to the hostel we headed down to the town but neither of us liked it so we decided to leave the next day. Thijs wanted to go to the Torres del Paine national park in Chile and do a trek called the W there - it sounded amazing so I decided to tag along more from there.

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